


Mr. Eames &

by wldnst



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-09
Updated: 2011-08-09
Packaged: 2017-11-12 18:40:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/494407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wldnst/pseuds/wldnst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eames obsessively tracks a young adult series that may or may not be based on his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mr. Eames &

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a [kinkmeme prompt](http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/19177.html?thread=45294057#t45294057), originally posted on [livejournal](http://wldnst.livejournal.com/11206.html), August 2011. 
> 
> Thanks to gelbwax for the beta read.

When it comes to light that the title for the fourth book in the Dreamers quartet is _Inception_ , Eames knows within the hour. When Anthony Ruske sells the film rights for the quartet to Warner Brothers for an undisclosed amount, Eames knows immediately.

Because Eames does not have a Google alert on the name Anthony Ruske, except that he totally, completely does. Also an alert on the phrase “Dreamers quartet.” And on the name Eagen Grey, though that mostly brings up blogs about how likely it is that Grey will sleep with the prickly (but hot) Oliver Lawrence before the series is up, whether that relationship will have any longevity, and how scorching their potential sex will be, regardless.

Eames usually reads the blogs both critically and with too much investment, but in his defense, he does avoid the fanfiction. Only because it makes him somewhere between uncomfortable and jealous, because he was not that good at sex when he was seventeen. And, also, these characters are seventeen and he’s twice their age.

There are times, when he’s trawling (and trolling) message boards (dreamwalkers.com is decidedly the best) that Eames wonders if he has some sort of problem. He usually writes that off.

He especially writes it off when he finds out, fifty-six minutes after the information is leaked, that the fourth book will be titled _Inception_. Ariadne sends him an e-mail seven minutes later with a series of exclamation marks for the subject line, because Ariadne is the person second-most invested in figuring out who, precisely, Anthony Ruske is.

Eames is the person first-most invested, but that’s only because the books are obviously about him, if he had gotten involved in dreamsharing when he was sixteen years old and had been rather a doormat and a twit.

That might be getting ahead of the story, though. Eames is not Anthony Ruske; neither is he a writer, nor a historian. So no one should expect him to get the pacing or even the chronology quite right on this. If pressed, though, he would say that it began with the publication of the first book in the international sensation the Dreamers quartet would become.

The first book in the series was published by Viking, released in America in July of 2010. It was set somewhere between the present and the future, called _Ignition_ , and traced the development of something called dreamwalking, a novel technology which enabled individuals to invade the dreams of others. This was all viewed through the eyes of one Eagen Grey (that’s Grey to you), an ordinary bloke from Oxford, the son of a professor and a librarian, who was not, unlike the protagonists of many such novels, orphaned at a young age. Instead he became involved with dreamwalking research one afternoon when he was skulking around the university where his mother worked, trying to get her to give him money for fish and chips. Instead of getting fish _or_ chips, he had encountered a mysterious psychology professor who immediately recognized Grey as uniquely gifted and enlisted him for an experiment. In addition to eventually giving Grey money for dinner. It should have been morally dubious--it probably was morally dubious--but maybe because the professor was eccentric and had a long white beard, it mostly worked.

Eames did not read _Ignition_ for at least a year and a half after its British release. By that time the sequel ( _Transformation_ ) had topped the bestseller lists of both sides of the pond, and also on several sides of other bodies of water, both with and without quaint nicknames (the ditch, the Indian Ocean, etcetera). It was, in the popular vernacular, an international bestseller.

But Eames had been busy. His father had sent him a copy of the first book almost immediately after the British release, wrapping in butcher paper with a little note written in illegible scrawl--“you might like this one.” And Eames had put it at the bottom of a pile of books, wrapped in butcher paper and festooned with similar notes, that he had a vague intention of reading.

Then he had flown to Israel for an extraction, and from there he’d gone to Japan, and from there to Washington, D.C., and by the time he got back home he had an inkling that his father had, in fact, mailed him the very book that was causing a shimmering wave of gossip to ripple across the dreamsharing community--in Israel it was a rumor, in Japan, a _confirmed_ rumor, and in Washington, something slightly more than that. Someone in the know had written a novel about dreamsharing. They had peeled back the veil. It was, perhaps not inexplicably given the success of the likes of _Harry Potter_ , _The Hunger Games_ , and _Twilight_ , targeted at young adults.

Mostly people were pissed because whoever it was, they were getting rich. There was a betting pool about who Anthony Ruske might be. Eames had it on good authority that there were at least five hundred U.S. dollars, one thousand Euros, seven hundred pounds, and ten thousand rupees on it being him, and he didn’t have the energy to figure out who had bet the money so he could either thank or taunt them. But copies of the book were hard to come by, because no one wanted to support the author by actually buying one, so Eames had to wait until he got home to read it.

He had been feeling rather smug about being suspected by so many until he actually read the book, and then he called Ariadne-- _Ignition_ ’s most ardent advocate--immediately.

“Why the _fuck_ didn’t you tell me it was about me?” he hissed when she answered the phone with her own name, groggy.

“What?” she said.

“ _Ignition_ ,” he said. “British kid, from Oxford, professor mum, librarian dad--what the _fuck_.”

“Eames?” she said. “I didn’t know your mom was a professor. And, incidental piece of information here, but it’s two in the morning.”

Eames was actually aware of that. Ariadne was in Paris, he was in Mombasa, there was something dripping from his ceiling and his copy of _Ignition_ was splayed open at the foot of his bed. His father would’ve told him to use a bookmark.

“Who the fuck is Anthony Ruske?” he asked, because although he _could_ apologize, that didn’t mean he wanted to. Or would. Or any of that shit.

“I think I only answered my phone because I was sleeping,” Ariadne continued. “And vulnerable.”

“You can’t be a vulnerable sleeper in this business,” Eames said idly “But that’s not the matter at hand.”

“Right,” Ariadne said. “Anthony Ruske. How about we discuss that in the morning.”

“I don’t want--” Eames started, but by then Ariadne had already hung up.

He spent the rest of the evening (which was already, if he was frank with himself, over) reading the Wikipedia article about Anthony Ruske sixteen times, and then he fell asleep knowing precisely the same amount of information has he had when he started. Namely, that there was no useful information about Anthony Ruske available. _Ignition_ was his first book. He lived in New York City. All of that was probably bullshit, but even lies could reveal something of the truth, if they were told in any volume. Anthony Ruske apparently knew that, and so the only source Eames had to draw from were his books.

In _Transformation_ , published in late 2011, Grey learned to change shape in dreams and joined forces with the mysterious American Oliver Lawrence, who had been introduced passingly in the first novel when he crashed a faculty mixer Grey was attending at the university and got thrown out for looking like a hobo. Together with Lizbet Godoy they began to uncover a plot by World Corps to use dreamwalking to influence consumer habits and bring about a new world order.

In _Extraction_ , 2012, Oliver and Grey stole information from the dreams of the president of World Corps, only for Grey to discover that said president was Oliver’s father. This information was revealed in the frantic aftermath of the extraction, when Oliver and Grey are clearly about to kiss out of desperation and joy. At the end of the novel it looked like Grey and Lizbet would be continuing their mission alone. The Greybet shippers let out a roar of joy heard ’round the world wide web, but Eames refused to read their improbable manifestos. Even when they popped up on his Google alert.

And now, _Inception_. The publication is slated for late 2013; in time for the Christmas shopping season, although Eames has serious doubts about whether any right-minded child will be willing to wait until Christmas. He certainly won’t.

And, judging by the exclamation marks dashing across the subject line of Ariadne’s e-mail, neither will she. Eames dials her number.

“You think it was someone on the job?” he asks as soon as she picks up.

“How could it not be?” Ariadne is practically shouting. “No one else has--”

“That’s not strictly true,” Eames says.

“What do you mean, ‘strictly true’?” Ariadne says. “Superior fucker.”

Eames would not actually argue with the description of himself as a superior fucker, but that’s besides the point.

“There are pockets in the dreamsharing community,” Eames continues. “Isolated populations, so to speak. A military team attempted inception years ago, but since the criminal side of dreamsharing isn’t entirely drawn from military sources--”

“But you know about it, blah, blah, blah,” Ariadne mutters.

“Also,” Eames says, pretending he didn’t hear her. Because he’s the better man. “Also, the military inception didn’t work, but only because they planted the wrong idea.”

“And you were on this team, double-oh-seven?” Ariadne asks, and if they were face to face Eames would try to look coy. As it is, he doesn’t.

“Yes,” he says. “Of course I was.”

“So, what, five other people could’ve written this, and all of them are in the military and tight assed as shit and probably wouldn’t.”

“Do you think I’m a tight ass? It’s also possible one of the corporate teams has achieved inception and we don’t know.”

“Stop it,” Ariadne says. “Do you seriously think Ruske is a corporate stiff _or_ a military lackey? Because it takes cojones to potentially out an entire industry in a novel, or a series of novels, let alone bestsellers--”

“And you think it could only be someone who already has the feds on their back,” Eames finishes for her.

“Precisely,” Ariadne says, enunciating the word carefully.

“Or, consider this, maybe it was been someone who just _heard_ about the inception job,” Eames says.

“Did you tell anyone? Because I didn’t.”

“It’s not a completely unique idea, Ariadne.”

“And it’s so hard to believe it could’ve been Cobb, or Arthur, or Yusuf?”

“Yes,” Eames says. He pushes his chair back from his desk and looks down at his toes, spreads them out. Arthur is too close-mouthed, Cobb too serious, Yusuf doesn’t give enough shits about anything outside his chemistry. Honestly, the only people on the team he could imagine actually writing Dreamers are himself and Ariadne, and they--didn’t.

“Cobb could’ve written it for his kids,” Ariadne continues.

“Can you seriously see Cobb writing a book about dreamsharing without including a Mal doppelganger?” Eames asks. “Because I can’t.”

“Lizbet?” Ariadne asks, but even she sounds skeptical.

“Even if you take into account sex organs, Lizbet has more in common with Yusuf than Mal. Up to and including being perpetually high.”

“Yusuf isn’t--” Ariadne starts, and then she lets out an exasperated sigh.

“Yeah,” Eames says. “Valiant effort though. A+.”

“Oh, shut up,” Ariadne says. “I suppose you know who wrote Dreamers, then.”

“Me,” Eames replies. “In my sleep.”

And then he hangs up the phone, because it’s absolutely not fair that Anthony Ruske stole details of his life, wrote a book about it, somehow twisted it so it’s extremely likely Grey will get laid whereas Eames hasn’t gotten any for _months_ , and then Ruske doesn’t even have the grace to at least admit who he--or she, for that matter--is. Except, you know, a creep.

Eames tried to anagram the pseudonym, once or twice or fifteen times. It didn’t help.

He decides that Anthony Ruske might be Robert Fischer primarily because he’s run out of tea and has eliminated all the other individuals involved with the inception job. It’s worth a try, anyway; Fischer shouldn’t remember the inception, but he _could_ , and who knows what ridiculous career path he selected for himself after dismantling his father’s empire. With that as evidence, Eames tries and fails to locate Fischer, and then he calls Arthur.

“Eames,” Arthur says when he picks up, voice dry. “To what do I owe the dubious pleasure?”

“Dubious--” Eames starts. There’s not really anything to say. A dubious pleasure still could be a pleasure.

“Sorry,” Eames continues. “I was wondering if you’d been keeping tabs on Robert Fischer?”

“Upstate New York,” Arthur says. “Surprisingly wholesome commune.”

“Wholesome?” Eames says, and Arthur releases a low chuckle. Eames imagines him at the other end of the line--he doesn’t know where Arthur lives, but he imagines someplace neat but quirky, immaculately clean but not lacking character. Arthur might be sitting at a desk, tipping back on his chair in the way he’s prone to do, on the verge of dimpling.

“They make soap,” Arthur replies.

“And is there any chance that he’s been in touch with someone from Viking?” Eames says, and Arthur groans.

“You and Ariadne think--”  

“Actually it’s just me, cheers,” Eames says. He opens his refrigerator to a surge of cool air and studies the contents. Perhaps he should’ve blamed Ariadne.

“There’s no chance Fischer remembers what went down,” Arthur says. “Not to mention that where he’s currently living is off the grid. And there’s at least seventeen other reasons why Robert Fischer couldn’t have written those shitty books.”

“Sounds like you’ve been counting,” Eames says, tucking the phone under his chin and grabbing a jar of gherkins.

“Don’t project,” Arthur says. “It’s only permissible in dreams.”

“Guess what I’m eating?” Eames replies, crunching into a gherkin.

“Fuck you, I hate this game,” Arthur says. And then, momentarily, “Potato chips.”

“No,” Eames says, and takes another bite.

“Tomato?” Arthur asks.

“How do you go from crisps to tomatoes?” Eames asks, and Arthur grumbles.

“This is a fucking impossible game, dumbass. If I got some food--right now--and I don’t have any but _if I did_ \--if I got some food and ate it you wouldn’t have a clue.”

“Bet me on that?” Eames asks, crunching on his gherkin. He likes it when he can get Arthur entangled in insipid arguments, and he has a feeling that Arthur enjoys it, too, because otherwise he would’ve hung up as soon as Eames started eating. Arthur doesn’t suffer fools gladly, except, apparently, when he does.

That was one of Eames’ more searing insights for the evening.

“Yes,” Arthur says. “Yes I will. I’ll call you in the future, and eat food at you, and if you can’t guess, you’ll owe me--something--”

“Deal,” Eames replies. He’s not overly concerned with the terms of the bet, so long as it exists. Arthur will probably try to pull something stupid with kale chips or seaweed, but Eames is totally on to him and his penchant for disgusting green foods.

“It’s a pickle,” Arthur says, and then he hangs up the phone.

Eames looks at the jar on the counter and shrugs. Then he calls Ariadne.

“Arthur says it’s not Fischer,” he offers.

“Oh, brilliant,” she says. “That’s so helpful. I totally thought Fischer was Anthony Ruske.”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor,” Eames says, and hangs up on her.

Ariadne calls him back.

“I don’t understand why you trust Arthur, anyway,” Ariadne says. “It could be him.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Eames says. “I’m sure Arthur wrote a kids’ book.”

“It’s not a kids’ book,” Ariadne says. “It’s a young adult series with huge crossover potential. And I thought sarcasm was the lowest form of humor?”

“It is when you use it,” Eames snipes. He returns the gherkins to the fridge and takes a moment to stare at it again: milk, gherkins, _meat_ , leftover curry from Yusuf, if he doesn’t get a job soon he’ll need to go grocery shopping, and he has a policy against being at the house for more than three trips to anything that might constitute a grocery store, and that includes corner shops and markets.

“Besides,” Eames continues. “If Arthur did write it, he’d have every reason to encourage me to continue pursuing false leads.”

“Eh,” Ariadne says. “Point to you, Mr. Eames.”

“Thank you, m’dear. Now, I assume you’ve been following the speculation about _Inception_ , so I’m thinking we make a bet about how explicit our friend Ruske will make the sex.”

“Ugh,” Ariadne says. “They’re kids.”  

“They _were_ kids,” Eames says. “They’re all at least eighteen now, yeah? So it’s all squared away, even in the most prudish of nations. And isn’t this a young adult series with huge crossover potential? Nothing says crossover like sex.”

“You really need to get laid,” Ariadne says. “If you just pop north a bit, I know a place--”  

“Not going clubbing with you,” Eames says. “Ever again.”

The last time Eames went clubbing with Ariadne, Ariadne went home with the bartender. Eames woke up in a dumpster with a mouth full of rotten banana peel, a searing headache, and a slow tidal wave of memories he would rather forget.

Ariadne harrumphs, probably blowing out her lower lip.

“You know that bartender thought she was saving me from you?” Ariadne says. “Best sex of my _life_.”

“Don’t rub it in,” Eames mutters. He’s heard this story before--it’s not quite as unfortunate as what he did that night, but it’s about as depressing.

“I was trying to cheer you up,” Ariadne says. “Apparently I suck at it.”

“Yeah you do,” Eames starts to say, but then Ariadne cuts him off.

“I’ve got an incoming call from Arthur, I’m going to take it, alright?” she says, and then she puts Eames on hold before he has a chance to respond. He considers going to the washroom to make morose faces at himself in the mirror.

He resists the urge, barely. When he had had flatmates they had called his propensity for making faces at himself in the mirror narcissistic. Their exact words had been “something--something--why didn’t you fuck that _bird_ , she was _hot_ \--something--something--I need to use the _loo_ ,” but it was the thought that counted.

Eames had already been forging then. His affinity for mirrors was more a way to keep track of himself than anything else, but it wasn’t always worth the bother of explaining.

Ariadne comes back on the line, “Arthur--he’ll probably be calling you in a sec--”

And then there’s a call from Arthur, like clockwork, and Eames says, “I’ve got an incoming call from Arthur, I’m going to take it, alright?” and puts Ariadne on hold before she has a chance to respond. Because she deserves it.

Prezioso wants them for an inception.

“I thought we were done with them?” Eames asks. “Since Cobb got what he wanted and all.”

“The price is right,” Arthur says. In his mind’s eye, Eames can see him shrugging, a smooth motion of the shoulders that ripples down his back. Prezioso--Eames has worked for him before, and he oils the gears of every machine he encounters with money

“Who’s the extractor?” Eames asks.

“Nelson, actually,” Arthur replies after a moment.

“Nelson--” Eames says. Nelson was the only extractor Arthur had worked with other than Cobb. She was also one of the best, before she formally retired. They gave her rather a nice crystal picture frame. Nelson had said she wouldn’t go into the field again; she hadn’t. And now she was coming back after two years out, and doing an _inception_. “How did you get her?”

“I imagine Jones made her an offer he couldn’t refuse,” Arthur says. “You know how it goes.”

Eames does, actually, and even though he doesn’t need the money, he says he’ll do it. Maybe Prezioso knew, or Yusuf told him, but if Arthur’s on the team Eames will go along with very nearly anything. It’s a stupid weakness, though at least he knows he has it and he knows it’s stupid. Eames likes to think that counts for something, but he supposes Achilles knew that his heel was a bit of a weak point.

“What am I eating?” Arthur says, after the business end of things is taken care of.

“What?” Eames asks, because it barely sounds like anything. Maybe Arthur is moving his jaw.

“I think your phone is shitty,” Eames says, but the noise on the other end continues to be soft and muffled.

“Give up?” Arthur says when he returns to the line, speaking around a mouthful of--something.

“Nothing,” Eames says.

“No,” Arthur replies.

“Cheese?”

“Nope.”

“Fucking kale chips, I don’t even care,” Eames says.

“Marshmallow,” Arthur says. “Dumbass.”

“I was going to guess that next,” Eames says, and earns himself a bright laugh. “What do I owe you?”

“I’ll let you know,” Arthur replies.

“So you took it?” Ariadne asks when she’s back on the line.

“Of course,” Eames mutters. “Not like I really had any choice.”

“See you in Stockholm,” she says, and Eames has to pause and wonder why Prezioso wants to steal a vote on the Nobel committee. A single vote won’t make a difference, but there it is: that’s the job.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Arthur had said, when Eames asked. The words had floated across their tenuous mobile connection, somewhere between nonsense and not. It reminded Eames of when they had first met. Arthur liked to talk about principles, then, although the principles never made complete sense, and he walked with the lazy gait of someone who had studied philosophy at university and didn’t give a fuck whether or not it was useful.

That was a long time ago, when Arthur was sapling-green and Eames had just made the jump to criminal from the military dreamsharing community. It had been a sort of scrambling leap, and he was still trying to catch his footing when Arthur showed up. Arthur hadn’t yet taken to dressing in suits; the first day he appeared at the warehouse in a t-shirt and jeans with holes in them. He looked like a scrawny kid, his dark hair curling around his ears.

Eames thought he was eighteen, maybe less. When he asked Cobb if he was some sort of prodigy, Cobb had thrown back his head and laughed, and then he’d called over Arthur and told him the story, and Arthur had just shrugged one shoulder up, which made him seem even younger.

“Does it matter?” he said. “I was a prodigy once. I can do the job.”

Arthur had turned out to be the same age as Eames. Arthur had turned out to be slightly overconfident, as twenty-three-year-olds are wont to be, at least based on the following evidence: Eames was the same.

They did the job, but not before Cobb got grazed by a bullet while Arthur was fiddling with his gun, not before Eames lost control of his forgery and wound up with his own eye on the mark’s wife’s face.

“No one gets it quite right the first time,” Cobb said when they reconvened at a dingy bar afterwards. He was not looking at Eames so much as he was looking at Mal, and Eames wondered idly what their sex life was like, spinning the toothpick of olives through his martini.

He was sucking the olives off the toothpick when Arthur showed up.

“What, do you think you’re James Bond?” he said, settling on a stool next to Eames at the bar. He was wearing an Oxford and a waistcoat; his hair was slicked back; he looked like he would look, later, but at the time it was some kind of revelation.

“I could say the same of you,” Eames said, instead of offering one of the compliments buzzing around his head. The compliments were, frankly, embarrassing, and the harder he tried to come up with a suave one they closer they got to pick-up lines of the most unfortunate sort. Cobb had glanced between the pair of them, plainly amused, and then returned to his conversation with Mal. “Why didn’t you wear that on the job?”

Arthur held up a slim white finger, then called over the bartender and ordered a scotch. It was oddly charming, like he expected Eames to somehow be offended if he paused the conversation for a moment without acknowledging.

“I figured it didn’t matter what I wore to the warehouse, because it’s a warehouse and we sleep for work. Apparently, I was mistaken,” he replied. He was chewing on his lower lip, a habit he eventually either outgrew or controlled; Eames looked away, to the scratched mirror behind the bar.

“Think he’ll hire us again?” Eames asked, nodding at Cobb.

“Me, of course,” Arthur said. “Not so sure about your chances.”

Eames had laughed at that, then, but now it seems like one of those jokes that was only funny given the circumstances--lukewarm beer, lights with lampshades the color of Coca-Cola, the quick glint of Arthur’s teeth when he grinned, waking up with the skin on his knuckles intact, in-dream and out.

He never worries about the skin on his knuckles, now. It was scarred white and hard after a certain job in Pompeii that isn’t ever worth discussing.

Eames visits Yusuf before flying out, even though he hates visiting Yusuf. Yusuf’s den is always a stark reminder of the facets of dreamsharing, which glitters with the harshness of a diamond. Eames knew a diamondfence, once, who said that the trick of the best jewelers was to make the hardest stone on the planet look soft.

Yusuf has no interest in softness of any sort. He is one of the only honest men Eames has ever met in dreamsharing.

“You still think Grey is you?” Yusuf asks when their conversation circles around to the Dreamers quartet, as most conversations with Eames tend to these days.

“Who else could it be?” Eames counters. They’re in Yusuf’s shop, leaning side-by-side with elbows on the counter, watching the light filter through bottles of chemistry. Yusuf has made them both tea: too strong, so strong that Eames can feel it doing terrible things inside him as he drinks it.

“You do realize that Grey only resembles you in the superficial details, don’t you?” Yusuf says. “He doesn’t act anything like you.”

“But he resembles me in _way too many_ superficial details,” Eames says, trying to keep his voice level. He has noticed that Grey isn’t like him, but it’s a detail he chooses to disregard more often than not. Grey is a forger, but he doesn’t act like one, he runs the job like an extractor. And he’s Eames, but he doesn’t act like Eames, either.

Yusuf shrugs.

“I just thought I’d remind you,” he says. “Maybe it has nothing to do with you.”

Which is bullshit. It clearly has something to do with Eames.

“Or maybe whoever wrote those books just thought your backstory was interesting,” Yusuf continues. “It doesn’t need to be a big deal.”

Eames doesn’t say what he’s thinking.

He’s thinking that _of course_ it has to be a big deal. Even if Grey doesn’t resemble him, it’s his life--details of his life that are, in large part, his business and his alone--tacked onto a character in a storybook. At the very least, he deserves some royalties. At the most, though, he deserves an explanation.

A customer comes in, signaled by a clanging bell on the door, and when Yusuf returns to the conversation he glances at Eames with lazy, hooded eyes and changes the subject.

When Eames is getting ready to leave and Yusuf is closing up the shop, Yusuf gives him another long glance, assessing.

“You know which character you remind me of?” Yusuf asks, and Eames starts to reply: “If you say Lizbet I will--”

“Oliver,” Yusuf interjects. “Think about it.”

And then he swings the door shut so Eames is on the outside and flicks the padlock into place, shaking his head at the scowl furrowing Eames’ brow.

Maybe he should consider it immediately, but instead Eames files that piece of information away for later, neatly ensconcing it in his head with the other incongruities of his life: why french fries taste good dipped in milkshakes (Arthur taught him that--on a job in Ohio, at a Wendy’s on the cusp of the highway, eating Frosties and french fries in a parked car while the moon wheeled across the sky), the number of times Ariadne has beaten him at cards (“Unlucky in love,” she always says, frowning, and each time Eames wonders if that means his luck in love is _good_ ), why Dom Cobb is unashamed to admit that the _third_ Matrix is his favorite movie.

Eames takes enough Tylenol P.M. to knock out a horse for his flight to Stockholm, because when he told Ariadne you couldn’t be a vulnerable sleeper in this line of work he was kind of lying. Also because without the drugs he knows he won’t sleep at all, and then he’ll just dwell on things when he’d rather not.

During the layover in Amsterdam he spends ten minutes staring at a display of the Dreamers quartet in an airport bookshop, until the shopkeeper comes out to ask him if he needs any help.

“No,” he says, and then when she looked at him with one painted brow raised expectantly: “Just a fan.”

“Ah,” she says, her lips peeling back to reveal teeth. “Then you’ll have heard about Grey, yes?” 

“No,” Eames says, feigning disinterest. “I’m afraid I haven’t.”

“They want to cast Zac Efron,” she says, like this is some delicious secret. “For the film.”

Eames tries to school his face into something that’s not complete horror.

“That’s interesting,” he says, and when the intercom crackles to life and a bland woman’s voice starts to say something Eames says “I think that’s my flight” and rushes off.

_Zac Efron for Grey what the fuck_. He texts that to Ariadne when the plane is taxiing, and makes enough muffled noises of disapproval that the man in the seat next to him glances at Eames not once but three times with an expression on his face that suggests he doesn’t like something he smells.

But that may just be his face.

The flight to Stockholm is shorter, but Eames is awake the entire time so it feels longer. He flips through SkyMall, considers and then nixes purchasing a giant crossword for the unembellished wall in the room he might call an office if he ever did anything in it. He counts by threes, and looks at the book he brought but doesn’t read it. When he finally lands in Stockholm Ariadne is there to meet him, holding a cardboard sign coloured flat grey.

“Funny,” he says when he sidles up to her. “Hilarious.”

“I thought so,” she replies, tossing the scrap of cardboard into a rubbish bin. “But you know, different strokes for different folks.”

“Right,” Eames says, and Ariadne grins and reaches for his carry-on. She hales a taxi to the warehouse, humming tunelessly to herself.

“You’ve met Annelise, right?” she says.

“If _you_ have of course I have,” Eames says dryly. “I’ve been in the business for eleven years.”

“And you get around like the town bicycle,” Ariadne mutters. “No reason to act superior about it.”

Eames snorts and Ariadne glances at him.

“Annelise and Arthur are pretty close,” she says slowly.

“Are they?” Eames asks. “I don’t recall.”

Ariadne shrugs, glances out the window, then shoots him a grin.

“And we’re starting a club but you aren’t invited because you’re the only one on this job whose name doesn’t start with ‘A.’”

“I’m distraught,” Eames says. “Or I would be, if my first name weren’t Aaron.”

“Don’t bullshit me,” Ariadne says. “You look nothing like an Aaron.”

“Two ‘A’s,” Eames continues. “I should be the king of your little club.”

“It doesn’t have a king because Arthur and I are both _American_ and believe in democracy. In fact, I’m Greek, I practically invented democracy,” Ariadne says haughtily, ignoring Eames’ scoffing protest. “We’re here.”

Ariadne pays the cabbie while Eames inspects the warehouse, which looks like every warehouse ever: stamped with the name of some business it no longer contains, too much wall for too few windows.

“Did you get my text?” he asks as he trails Ariadne inside.

“So, Efron huh?”

“It’s terrible,” Eames says. “Disney isn’t even involved with the movie, and why the _fuck_ would you involve Efron if not because Uncle Walt made you.”  

“Uncle Walt isn’t even alive,” Ariadne says. “And I thought the Disney Channel did quite a nice job with that _Pride and Prejudice_ adaptation.”

“The Disney Channel didn’t do a _Pride and Prejudice_ ,” Arthur calls from a dim room to the right of the entranceway. “But I thought their version of _Persuasion_ was quite good.”

“Arthur!” Ariadne crows. “You made a funny!”

“I make _funnies_ ,” Arthur says. “But usually my humor is too refined for the likes of you.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, shielding her eyes. “I’m a peon unworthy to be in your presence.”

Arthur catches Eames’ glance and grins until his eyes crinkle at the corners, and Eames allows himself a returning grin, probably too big and goofy, exposing his snaggleteeth.

“Hey,” he says.

“Been awhile,” Arthur says back.

“Is that Eames?” calls a woman from the same room that produced Arthur, and Annelise Nelson comes to the fore.

Annelise has always intimidated Eames because there’s something about her that seems almost challengingly wholesome, like she drinks whole milk straight from the cow and spends her spare time rescuing hikers lost beneath avalanches, and she expects the same of everyone she meets. Her cheeks are round and rosy, but her eyes are like shards of ice.

Also, she’s taller than Eames by a good several inches.

“Annelise,” Eames says, proffering a hand. “I expect you’ll want to brief me?”

“Arthur can,” she says, waving him off. “Though you should know that I’ve heard some rumors about you, and I won’t stand for discussions of those stupid books.”

When Eames looks at Ariadne, she shrugs apologetically, and slips off down the hall. Arthur glances at Eames, and gestures for him to follow.

They wind up in the vast, empty room on the top floor of the warehouse, where the light is better. There are desks in each corner, the plain, cheap kind made of fake wood that weigh more than they ought to. Arthur extracts some files from the drawer of one desk, and the leans back against it and indicates that Eames should take a chair.

“So Annelise isn’t my biggest fan, eh?” Eames asks.

“The mark--” Arthur starts.

The mark is a professor who has a clipped mustache and bovine eyes. He wears sweaters that seem better suited to a fisherman or a shepherd, and is married to a woman with a face like the moon. It is expected that Eames will tail him and find something sufficiently offensive for the forge to say, something that will sway the mark away from voting for the forge and into voting for someone else.

“Simple,” Arthur says, flopping the file closed and handing it to Eames.

“We really need a pointman for this?” Eames asks, and Arthur shrugs.

“We always need a pointman,” he says. “Someone needs to make sure the rest of you don’t get shot.”

“This man is militarized?” Eames asks, glancing at the file in his hands.

“Of course,” Arthur says. “You thought simple meant easy?”

It has been awhile. Eames forgot how neatly Arthur severs his professional life from his personal one, shifting from a crinkle-eyed grin to clipped vowels and a flat face as soon as the word _job_ enters the equation.

“Remember when we went for drinks after the inception job?” Eames asks, just to rile him.

“Yes,” Arthur says. “Ariadne went home with the bartender.”

Eames remembers that part, too. It’s the rest that he’s forgotten.

“Yes,” Eames echoes. “She did.”

“This is your desk,” Arthur tells him, and leaves.

Eames had rather thought it was Arthur’s desk, but when he slides open the bottom drawer he finds it contains only the most basic files, and the top drawer contains a row of the cheap stick pens of the sort Eames favors and a series of blank tapes for recording.

“Thanks,” he calls after Arthur, because it’s typical, really, that Arthur would have gotten the right sort of pens, and would have thought to pick up fresh tapes, and wouldn’t ask him why he can’t use a digital recorder like everyone else.

There’s no reply.

Eames sets to work almost immediately after unrolling his bedroll in the room Ariadne indicates he should sleep in. The mark doesn’t actually know the forge that well, so it should by all rights be easy, but trying to pass off a low quality forgery is the worst sort of unprofessionalism, and there are all sorts of things Eames does do, in life, but that isn’t one of them. He stamps his forges with craftsmanship, always.

And so he spends most of his time tailing the forge and recording observations, schedules, significant interactions. It’s dull, a marathon of dullness, and so Eames can hardly be blamed if his record of the forge’s activities occasionally spills over into comments about the Dreamers quartet, which Annelise apparently does not want to discuss, and Arthur persists in claiming he hasn’t read.

Arthur continues to be infuriating in his singular way. He occasionally catches Eames’ eye and grins like they share something secret. He occasionally treats Eames like he’s slightly less than the dirt scuffing the toe of Arthur’s wingtips. Sometimes his eyes crinkle, and sometimes they’re flat and opaque; it seems to change with the day, or with some subtle cue that Eames can’t pick up. On the bad days, sometimes Eames will make an attempt at riling Arthur and receive a grin; other days his attempt will be met with a frown or, at worst Arthur will disappear altogether, into Annelise’s room or out into the streets of Stockholm.

“What is the deal with Arthur and Annelise, anyway?” Eames asks after the fifth time this happens. Ariadne is fiddling with the Lego set she uses to unwind.

“I heard he set her up with James Bailey,” Ariadne says, glancing up. “Not that that relationship has any staying power.”

Annelise and James Bailey are infamous for the way their relationship oscillates between intense hatred and cloying affection, though Eames thought they had started dating on a job in London, when Arthur was in Belize. Not that he keeps tabs on Arthur or follows industry gossip with any particular attention.

Regardless, Arthur being besties with Annelise is definitely new.

“Maybe he’s trying to find a new extractor,” Ariadne offers. “Now that Cobb’s out.”

“He could just go back to being an architect,” Eames mutters, and Ariadne shrugs.

“How do you feel about the casting for Lizbet?” she says, instead, and Eames pretends not to notice she’s changing the subject because he has opinions about this that no one on the internet seems to care about so he’ll take any ear he can get (he hopes they cast an unknown for all the leads, for what it’s worth, because having a twenty-year-old play fifteen is always awful, and even if the acting isn’t great it’ll be nice not to have to think of Lizbet as “that chick from Skins” or _whatever_ ).

Ariadne seems to be listening, but she goes back to her Legos. Eames finds he doesn’t mind--he sits down on the spare stool next to Ariadne’s work table and lets everything spill out, and Ariadne hums assent whenever she deems it necessary.

“Doesn’t he have veto power on the casting?” Eames says. “I feel like I read that somewhere.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear on the internet,” Ariadne says. “If a Nigerian prince--”

“Worked with anyone recently who’s taking calls from Warner Brothers?” Eames continues.

“No,” Ariadne says. “But I doubt they’d be obvious about it if they were.”

“You know,” Eames says idly. “Someone has to know who Anthony Ruske is.”

“What?” Ariadne asks.

“I mean, he has an editor, and an agent. Someone has to know him, if they’re in touch on things like that,” Eames continues. It probably should have been obvious, but he’d never considered approaching Anthony Ruske sideways before. He always figured he could work it out be observing the candidates, but thus far no one was revealing a thing.

“So we ask his editor?” Ariadne says. “One does not simply walk into Mordor.”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Eames repeats. “We extract it, of course.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Ariadne says flatly, squinting one eye at the city she’s slowly building out of blocks of primary color.

“What’s a terrible idea?” Arthur asks, and where he came from Eames doesn’t know, but he’s carrying a bag of what smells like fries, and hamburgers, and a cardboard caddy of cups.

“Is that what I think it is?” Eames asks, and Arthur lifts the bag incrementally.

“Yes,” he says.

“Annelise let you buy that?” Eames asks, because Annelise likes her food to be made where she can see it.

“What Annelise doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Arthur says, and pulls a paper-wrapped burger and a sheaf of fries from the bag. “For you.”

“Thanks,” Eames says, snatching for the food. “I take back everything I ever said about kale chips. If I had to eat oatmeal for dinner again I was going to cry.”

“What about me?” Ariadne asks, and Arthur pulls too more greasy bundles from the bag before sitting down himself, ripping the bag down the middle to make a sort of placemat for his own portion. He’s perched on a stool, like Eames, with his feet resting on a bar and his knees wedged up too far, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows. His thirty-fourth birthday must have passed recently, though Eames doesn’t really keep track anymore. But it’s nice to see Arthur like this. He used to perch on stools like that when he was working architecture on jobs without Cobb, and he and Eames would meet up late at night when Eames was done tailing marks, just to get hamburgers and fries and milkshakes.

“Milkshake?” Eames asks, and Arthur barks a laugh.

“You would think you hadn’t eaten,” he says, handing Eames a cup.

“I haven’t,” Eames says. “I’ve been hiding my food in a napkin and dropping it out the window after you all go to bed.”

“That does explain the globs of oatmeal on the sidewalk,” Ariadne says. “But not the paunch around your middle.” She jabs pincered fingers at him.

“There’s no paunch,” Eames says, shifting his shirt upwards to look at his torso. “It’s blubber, to keep warm.”

Arthur glances at Eames’ stomach disinterestedly.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says. “There’s no paunch.”

“See?” Eames says, smoothing down his shirt and turning to Ariadne.

“Or no more than usual,” Arthur continues, and it’s Eames’ turn to laugh.

“Who do you think Anthony Ruske is, Arthur?” Ariadne asks when the conversation lulls. Eames looks up, because he knows Arthur never answers this question.

“I haven’t read the books,” Arthur says carefully, dipping a fry in his milkshake.

“But you have to have a suspicion,” Ariadne presses, and Arthur shrugs.

“There are people in dreamsharing I don’t know,” Arthur says.

“So you don’t think they’re about Eames?” Ariadne asks, and Arthur looks up for the first time, at Eames, not Ariadne.

“Maybe they’re about all of us,” he says, holding Eames’ gaze. “But if we’re living it, why do we need to read about it?”

“Because the books are tidier,” Eames replies.

“They’re not over yet,” Arthur says. “How’s the forge coming?”

“I’m ready to run this thing when you have a time,” Eames says. “And when Ariadne’s done with her Legos.”

“Don’t let me hold you back,” Ariadne mutters.

“We don’t have the right situation yet,” Arthur says. “Give me a week.”

Within the week, the mark gets a terrible toothache and needs a root canal. Eames is vaguely frightened.

“You can induce tooth problems now?” he asks.

“Sometimes solutions manifest themselves,” Arthur says. “Given time.”

Eames tries his best not to look skeptical. Annelise Nelson manifests herself, and tells them she would like to test the architecture, “One last time.” Eames checks Ariadne, but she doesn’t look offended in the least.

“I’ve improved it,” she says.

The dream is a single level, and the last time they went under it was a sleek cityscape and Arthur dreamed it. Eames has always kind of hated Arthur’s projections, who look like they all wash behind their ears and under their fingernails, but there’s nothing to be done about the fact that Arthur’s subconscious dresses everyone in wool and silk.

Eames wonders if Arthur’s projections dress differently when Arthur’s not on jobs, if _Arthur_ dresses differently when he’s not on jobs: but there’s really no way to know.

“You’re dreaming, this time,” Annelise says to Eames when they’re setting up the PASIV. “Just to make sure Ariadne can shape the architecture with different dreamers.”

Eames doesn’t hide his snort. _Of course_ Ariadne can shape the architecture with different dreamers. But Annelise just looks at him, confident and patient, and Eames is plugging in and going under without another sound.

The thing is, in the heat of the moment one tends to forget about their own embarrassing projections.

Ariadne has improved the level, and now it’s a lush cityscape, replete with fountains turning into waterfalls and strange trees. Eames manages to continue forgetting about his more embarrassing projections until they turn up.

“Eames,” Ariadne says when everyone else is still recovering from a violent swerve to the left to avoid a waterfall. “Why do you have a projection of yourself at eighteen?”

Eames makes a small choking noise. Arthur actually seems to be making a similar noise, but that may just be part of his recovery from the swerve.

“Is that supposed to be Eagen Grey?” Ariadne asks, narrowing her eyes.

“No,” Eames coughs, but he’s too late--Ariadne is making gleeful noises, and Annelise is looking extremely put-out. Arthur is in the passenger seat, and from what Eames can see of his face he looks disinterested, though his jaw is clenched, probably in annoyance.

“It _is_ ,” Ariadne says. “Let’s talk to him.”

“He’s a projection,” Eames says. “He’s got nothing to say.”

“Do you have a dreamcast for the rest of the characters, hm?” Ariadne asks. “Don’t see Oliver here.”

Eames does _not_ have a dreamcast for Oliver, except when he does. He jumps from his seat, pries the wheel from Ariadne’s grip, and plunges their van into a waterfall.

“You could’ve just shot us,” Arthur says, waking creakily. “It would have been less painful.”

“You only think that because you’re used to being shot,” Ariadne replies, stretching beside him. “Which is not to say driving the van into a waterfall was particularly genius, because it wasn’t.”

Eames ignores them both, and then Annelise wakes, scowling.

“I told you to keep those _books_ out of it,” she mutters. “And we didn’t get to properly test the level.”

“Like I have control over my projections,” Eames says, and Annelise’s frown deepens.

“You _should_.”

“The level was good, anyway,” Eames says to Ariadne, who is already getting to her feet and smoothing out her clothes.

“Of course it was,” she says. “Not that anyone noticed.”

“At least Grey didn’t drive a train through,” Eames replies, and Ariadne shrugs and pats him on the back.

“It’s okay you have a projection of a character from a kids’ book,” she says. “We understand. I’ve got Harry Potter.”

“It’s not a kids’ book,” Eames says. “It’s a young adult series with huge crossover potential.”

Ariadne laughs brightly, the sound ricocheting across the vacant warehouse.

“Back to work,” Annelise says. “Contrary to popular belief, we don’t have that much time.”

Eames catches Arthur looking at him, but before he can say anything Arthur disappears through the door to outside, in the way he does when he’s trying to escape something, though Eames doesn’t know what _Arthur_ feels the need to avoid, because Arthur wasn’t the one who had his embarrassing projection dredged up for mockery by all and sundry.

Because, frankly, everyone has embarrassing projections, and it’s just a matter of chance whether or not they show up, or are recognizable to others. Oliver and Grey wouldn’t be a problem if Eames’ subconscious hadn’t modeled them off real people, but maybe it’s no surprise that Eames’ subconscious did model them off real people, because projections always wear the faces of people you’ve seen.

Oliver looks like the photograph of Arthur at eighteen that Eames found among Mal’s things once, when he was helping her box them up to move in with Cobb for the first time, before they were married, when Mal said it just made more sense for them to live together.

“Oh, that,” she said, peering over Eames’ shoulder. “Our parents are cousins, yes? They sent us an invitation to Arthur’s graduation even though they knew we couldn’t come. I don’t know why I kept it.”

It wasn’t a good picture by any stretch of the imagination. Arthur’s hair was clipped short in anticipation of West Point, and he looked stoic and serious and uncomfortable. He also looked devastatingly young, the planes of his face unbroken by wrinkles, something in his eyes revealing an uncertainty that they would never betray now.

Mal had told him to throw it out. Eames had kept it, but only for long enough to crease it and commit it to memory and accidentally run it through the wash, where it transformed into a thick pulp that loosely meshed to the front pocket of his trousers.

“So who’s your dreamcast for Oliver?” Ariadne asks, when they’re upstairs and Eames is replaying his recordings to himself, rewinding and repeating “Runs left hand through hair” over and over again.

“Driving the car into the waterfall had nothing to do with that,” Eames states evenly, or as evenly as possible, and Ariadne just shrugs, fiddling with her models.

“You know I’ll assume the worst, right?” she says. “Right now I’m thinking--Cobb.”

“Oliver’s not blond,” Eames says before he can stop himself. He’s _right_ , Oliver isn’t blond--his hair’s described as dark brown, sometimes black (as when they were in the basement of World Corps, Oliver and Lizbet huddled together over the dream architecture while Grey watched, noting that their hair was so close in color one might assume them to be siblings if not for their contrasting skin tones).

“No,” Ariadne says, looking up at him. “But that doesn’t mean you projection of him isn’t blond.”

Eames stops his recorder, sets it down.

“You think you’re an extractor now?” he asks. Ariadne waves her hand.

“It’s okay to crush on an actor, Eames,” Ariadne says. “All sorts of people do, even if they are twice the age of the actor in question. Is it Taylor Lautner?”

“Oliver has pale skin,” Eames says. Which is true, also.

Ariadne grins at him, and goes back to her work. Eames wads up a sheet of paper and throws it at her, but his aim is off, and it rolls dejectedly across the floor without reaching its target. She looks at him.

“That’s what I thought, you know,” she says. “That you’d be really into canon, especially when canon conveniently points towards--”

“Arthur,” Eames says, because Arthur is there, standing in the shadowy light of the doorway, on the brink of entering the room. “Can we help you with anything?”

Arthur walks across the room and picks up the sheet of paper Eames had chucked at Ariadne and slowly uncrumples it and smooths it out.

“Annelise just wanted me to see how it’s going,” he says, setting the blank sheet down on Eames’ desk. 

“We’re getting things done,” Eames says, and hits play on his recorder.

“I really think Grey is being unreasonable about the Oliver situation,” crackles off the tape. “They should just fuck already.”

Arthur arches a brow.

“Good to know,” he says evenly.

Behind Arthur, Ariadne shoots a thumbs up at Eames and mouths something that might be ‘classy.’

“Ariadne’s playing with Legos,” Eames says, and Arthur’s eyebrows might rise further.

“It’s nice to see some maturity on the team,” he says.

“Always,” Eames replies, and grins in the way that is sometimes charming, but from experience he knows more often comes off as car salesman sleazy.

“Well,” Arthur says, blinking at him. 

“Yes,” Eames replies.

“I’ll just be going then,” Arthur says.

“Okay,” Eames says. He has a feeling the grin might be sleazy, or edging there, because his instinct tells him to say “Love to watch you leave” which he knows is sleazy.

Arthur leaves.

“It was a bit sketch at the end there,” Ariadne says. “But I don’t think he noticed.”

“What?” Eames asks, turning around.

“I hate how everyone thinks architects can’t read people,” she pouts. “Who figured out that shit that was going on with Cobb?”

“Everyone _knew_ shit was going on with Cobb,” Eames says. “We just ignored it.”

“Right, that makes it okay,” Ariadne says. “I’m just saying, I am aware of things other than my architecture, and I’m good at rooting out significant projections.”

“Like you rooted out Mal,” Eames snorts. “That’s like saying you rooted out the Pacific Ocean. It’s _visible from space_.”

Ariadne just shakes her head and goes back to her work, humming tunelessly to herself. Eames wads up the blank sheet of paper a second time and chucks it at her. This time his aim is true.

It’s not that Eames wants to fuck Arthur, precisely. He knows that’s what Ariadne thinks; or else she’s gone one step beyond that already and thinks Eames is madly in love with Arthur. The truth is somewhere between mad love and crazy lust: Eames has hit on Arthur, once or twice or thirteen times, and each time it’s slipped off Arthur’s back, deflected with a joke that makes Eames’ attempt itself seem like a joke.

It’s reached the point where even if Arthur came to him, even if Arthur slicked himself up and bent naked across Eames’ desk, Eames would probably walk away. Even if Arthur offered to bend Eames over his own desk--

Eames has a modicum of pride. He wants to fuck Arthur, yes, but he refuses to be someone that Arthur fucked, not if that’s all it’s going to be. The way Arthur divvies up his life is completely opaque to Eames, but he has the impression that the people Arthur sleeps with get divvied out.

As much as Ariadne griped about the assumptions people made about architects, Eames would argue that the popular opinion of forgers was worse. Gossip has it that forgers are fickle, that they don’t settle down, that they’ll do a one-night stand or maybe a few, and that’s all they want.

Eames knows, because he’s kind of the source. His policy had been not to date others in dreamsharing, and at the time it had seemed easier to imply he didn’t date at all. That was patently false.

There was a woman, for awhile.

There was a woman, for four years. Priya. You might say they were partners; she was an ex-pat, like Eames, and Indian like Yusuf, who had introduced them. She was thin and starkly handsome and too smart for her own good, sharp and stubborn and independent.

Eames said she didn’t need to work, if she didn’t want. She said Eames made her feel like a kept woman and took a job at the university. Eames came back from a job with a black eye and a cracked rib, and she pressed ice to his face and told him she didn’t like this. Eames came back from a job a week late with bloodshot eyes, and she said she hated dreamsharing and she was sorry she ever met Yusuf (that she was sorry she ever met Eames was a foregone conclusion) and then she left him for a fellowship at Oxford and her parents’ approval. If it was more complicated than that that’s because it always is.

It wasn’t until a year later that Eames had thought he might be able to make it work with Arthur, might be able to make an exception, but Arthur shrugged or laughed off everything Eames said.

The last time he tried was after the inception job, when he and Arthur and Ariadne stumbled into a fashionably dingy bar, running on adrenalin and not much else. Sleeping for a job is not like actually sleeping. Eames was tired. He imagines the other two were, as well, and he ended up doing shots of liquor that tasted like bitter fruit and leaning over to lick an offer into Arthur’s ear, something about that first job they had done together and the dark whorls of wood in the bar, something about Arthur’s skin and Eames’ tongue. Arthur had leaned against him until their shoulders were pressed together and said, very gently, “I don’t think you want what you think you want.”

And then he’d lifted a shotglass from the loose confines of Eames’ fingers and thrown it back himself, exposing a long line of throat. Eames suspected Arthur knew him well enough to know what he actually wanted, which made the whole thing worse.

The Dreamers quartet came out a year later, and two years after that Eames became fascinated with Anthony Ruske. It was a distraction, at the very least. It was something to think about. Eames preferred it to the alternative, because the alternative looked a lot like pining.

Which maybe explains why, when the second inception passes without event, Eames does not go out for drinks with anyone, and instead goes home, waits a week in unseasonably humid weather, and calls Ariadne for an extraction.

“You want to perform an extraction on Ruske’s agent,” Ariadne says as soon as she picks up the phone. She sounds tired. 

“Got it in one,” Eames says, and then Ariadne hums a little.

“I’ve got nothing else going,” she says. “But for some reason this seems like a stupid idea.”

“One level extraction,” Eames says. “Easy. And I’ll pay for your ticket to New York.”

“And for dinner?” Ariadne asks. “I’m not a cheap date.”

“And for dinner,” Eames says. “All the dinners you want.”

“This is the most expensive job you’ll ever do,” Ariadne replies gleefully, and then she hangs up the phone before Eames can retract anything.

As if he’s going to. Feeding Ariadne’s pit of a stomach for a week or two is worth it, if he can figure out who Anthony Ruske is and at least make sense of one of the mysteries in his life.

They meet in New York two days later, share a taxi from LaGuardia into the city.

“Ready for this?” Ariadne asks, when they’re both in the back of the car with their luggage wedged between them, stuck in thick traffic--somewhere. Eames doesn’t actually know New York that well, but he’s booked them a room at a hotel near Wall Street, with separate beds where they can dump their bags and enough space for Ariadne’s models.

“Shared room?” Ariadne asks, bouncing on one of the beds. “Should I be concerned?”

“This is only so I could afford to pay for all the food you’re apparently going to eat,” Eames counters.

“You’re cheap,” she says, quirking her eyebrows. “I knew I should’ve been more specific.” 

“Like I’m going to do anything,” Eames says mildly. There’s a painting above each of the beds; one of a boat, one of a lighthouse, in soft pastels.

“I’m mostly worried that you’ll jack off in the bathroom and I’ll hear,” Ariadne says. “Please don’t. For me.”

Eames socks her in the shoulder, eliciting a gentle thud of flesh against flesh and a mock cry of protest from Ariadne.

“Come on,” she says, sliding off the polyester blanket on her bed and getting to her feet. “You owe me dinner. I read about this place on the internet--we’re going to have soup dumplings.”

“Of course,” Eames says, and lets Ariadne lead him towards Canal Street.

“So how do we find Ruske’s agent?” Ariadne asks.

“She’s done a few interviews,” Eames says. “And I just happen to be a reporter from _The Guardian_ who would like to speak with Anna Knight about the success of Ruske’s novels. You know.”

“Are we going to try to do the extraction then?” Ariadne asks. “Without knowing anything about the mark?”

“Slip her a few drugs, do a little of this, little of that--” Eames says. “Yes.”

“I knew this was a terrible idea,” Ariadne mutters, dodging a businessman who’s barreling down the street with his head lowered.

“Has it not occurred to you that Ruske’s agent might be in the industry as well?” Ariadne asks, returning to Eames’ side.

It hadn’t, actually, but it seems unlikely.

“You think two people are in on this?” he asks. “It seems like the sort of thing someone would go at alone.”

“There could be more than one person willing to sell out the industry for some money and literary fame,” Ariadne shrugs. “Potentially.”

Eames frowns, but lets the subject rest when they hit the open air produce markets, which shift into open air fish markets. They have a week to plan the job; Eames intends to find what he can about Anna Knight, though thus far he’s been unable to find any photographs, so he won’t be tailing her. Instead, he’ll do his research the new-fashioned way: online.

The soup dumplings are good. The research keeps getting waylaid by new posts on the dreamwalkers.com forum and the occasional Google alert: _New York Times_ article about what the Dreamers series says about teen culture. _Entertainment Weekly_ article about the unknown actor selected to play Grey. Outraged parents somewhere in the midwestern United States, offended because the quartet promotes--what, sleeping?--homosexual relations.

Anna Knight, conversely: nothing. Apparently, Ruske is her only client, which is suspicious if she’s supposed to have a relationship with Viking. And from what Eames can find, they don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts.

It’s beginning to look like Ariadne may be right. Eames considers telling her; he also considers calling Arthur. For no reason he can fathom, he does neither.

The week passes in a haze of food, sleep, internet. Ariadne makes models. They get by. The city at once feels sleeker and grittier than Mombasa, and Eames isn’t sure he likes it, although the weather is cooler than it was in Mombasa, and with the hotel’s air conditioning he manages to sleep the night without throwing all his sheets on the floor. At night the noise of the city is muffled by their hotel room’s height off the ground, and in general he feels more coddled by this city than he did by Mombasa, like it’s somehow protecting him from certain stark realities: this is a city, this job is probably not a good idea.

It may just be the price of the hotel room that’s doing the coddling.

The morning of the job the sky is the color of the pavement, and Eames orders Ariadne to tell him how to dress like a journalist, because he’s not entirely sure what journalists look like. She just blinks at him from somewhere between weary and annoyed.

“I don’t know,” she says momentarily. “Just wear something--” she waves her hand.

“Something,” Eames repeats.

“Like a shirt, and pants.”

“Right,” he says, and does that as Ariadne selects similarly nondescript clothes for herself. The plan is that Ariadne will follow him and wait in the hall until Knight is under. The plan is brilliant.

Knight has a private office in the Flat Iron District, five stories up in a dingy building that smells of socks and has too much brassy detailing. Eames is torn between thinking it might somehow be nice because it’s near a park and Broadway and thinking it’s terrible, because the lobby is dimly lit and the building itself seems to be split between residential and offices almost at random.

Anna Knight buzzes him up. Her voice is strident and pitchy, but that may just be the intercom. Eames and Ariadne and he ride the lift up in silence. This is going to be easy. Eames lets that hope hum through him even though he hardly believes it. But that’s what hope’s for, isn’t it?

Knight’s office is at the end of the corridor, to the left of a window that looks across an alleyway at another brick building. Ariadne wedges herself into the space between the window and the door, like that will somehow make her less conspicuous if anyone comes out of the other offices, and Eames raps on the door three times.

Annelise Nelson opens it.

Annelise has always been taller than Eames and intimidatingly Scandinavian, and now she seems both taller and more intimidating. There are so many things this probably means: at the moment, Eames doesn’t consider them, because he would prefer not to die.

“Mr. Eames,” she says. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Mr. Eames is not the name of the reporter who is supposed to be interviewing Anna Knight. Eames blinks at her.

“You thought I wouldn’t know?” she says, arching a thin eyebrow. Her eyes are flat and flinty, which is how Eames remembers them being: grey, not blue.

“Right,” Eames says.

“Ariadne, you come as well,” Annelise calls, and Ariadne emerges from behind the door. She doesn’t have the grace to look sheepish, just grins offhandedly and offers a hand.

“Annelise,” she says. “Been a while.”

Annelise grants Ariadne half a smile, which is more than she grants nearly anyone else, and Eames shoots Ariadne a glance. She shrugs minutely. Eames wonders if Ariadne is jealous of James Bailey, though jealousy isn’t really Ariadne’s style.

“Well,” Annelise says when they arrive in her office, which turns out to be in the corner of the building, dark wood and leather furniture that’s illuminated by windows on all sides. “Would you like to try to do this?”

Eames is prepared to say no when Ariadne says, “Yes,” leveling Annelise with an even gaze.

“I suspected as much,” Annelise says, tenting her fingers. “Then let’s get on with it.”

Eames looks at Ariadne, trying not to look aghast and failing. It’s virtually impossible to perform an extraction on someone who knows about it, especially someone in the industry--Ariadne should know as much. She just shakes her head and turns back to Annelise.

“Are you really Ruske’s agent?” Eames asks, in lieu of the dozen other questions he wants to pursue: When did you sleep with Ariadne? Why didn’t I notice that during the job? Can’t you just tell us what’s going on? Why are we going to run the extraction, again? 

“That’s for me to know, Mr. Eames,” Annelise says wanly. “And you to find out, perhaps. Let’s get on with it.”

“English isn’t even your first language,” Eames says, for no reason at all. He feels embarrassed about it almost immediately, but his trousers are sticking to the leather chair and he’d rather be almost anywhere else.

“English teachers in Sweden are very good,” Annelise says. “Please, Eames, the subject at hand. I have a PASIV here, if necessary.”

She bends down to remove something from behind the desk, and Ariadne shoots Eames a withering glance.

“We can take care of it,” he says, unlatching his suitcase and removing the PASIV. On the table it gleams bright silver, reflecting the late morning sun.

“If you insist,” Annelise replies, shrugging her shoulders evenly.

Eames lets sleep overtake him. He suspects it will only be a relief for a few minutes--the moments between leaving the waking world and waking in the dream one, where Annelise will probably shoot him in the face.

This is true, because when Eames opens his eyes it’s not the architecture Ariadne had shown him before; it’s something else entirely. They’re in a golden field, but it’s interspersed with walls and smooth white furniture; it looks nothing like anything was supposed to.

“I did it,” Ariadne says, moments after Eames opens his eyes, afraid that Annelise mutinied on the architecture. But that still means that Ariadne had some sort of alternate architecture prepared for Annelise, and Eames doesn’t know what to do with that information.

“I’ll distract her,” Ariadne says. “Go for the lockbox.”

There is so much wrong with this job.

Eames gets shot pretty quick--or, not shot, killed with throwing stars because Annelise’s projections are bloodthirsty and strange. He knows she did the militarization herself, and it shows: these aren’t corporate projections, they’re wily and vaguely ridiculous and they really, genuinely _want_ to kill Eames, which is not something projections do.

It takes a little longer for Ariadne and Annelise to wake up.

“And I suppose nothing happened to you?” he asks. Ariadne shifts slightly in her chair, but she’s still slumping.

“Sometimes Arthur’s kissing trick works,” she says. “But only under very specific circumstances.”

Eames actually knows the circumstances, because the trick isn’t _Arthur’s_ , but he lets it slide.

“Let’s go,” he mutters. Ariadne glances at Annelise and shrugs, then trails after him.

Eames does rather feel like his tail’s between his legs, but--but. He buys Ariadne dinner at some place where the food costs a lot and the wine costs more, because it makes him feel better.

He thinks he knows who wrote the books, and he would really rather not, because if he’s Grey then Eames has never been so radically misinterpreted in his life, and it makes him want to punch something

He flies back to Mombasa in the morning, and there are two pieces of information waiting for him: (1) They found some Bollywood actress to play Lizbet; (2) Annelise was apparently thoughtful enough to overnight him an envelope which contains a sheet of thick linen paper that says “You’re a dumbass” in neat cursive script. Eames turns it over a few times, and then tapes it to the fridge. It also contains a paperclipped manuscript, apparently the first chapter of _Inception_. That, Eames just stares at.

The manuscript is typewritten, and it must be a spare copy or something, because there’s not a single note. There’s a moment where Eames just looks at the sheaf of papers, held in place with a paper clip, and then he settles down at the kitchen table, takes the title sheet off, and begins to read.

It’s not actually the first chapter of the book, judging by the numbers in the corners of the pages--it’s thirty-seven pages in, and it’s just one scene. Grey and Oliver meet in Amsterdam, or maybe Oliver follows Grey to Amsterdam. They’re drinking coffee in a dimly lit bar, and Oliver is saying things, apologies and explanations, and then Oliver says something, and it’s precisely what Eames said to Arthur after inception, words Eames doesn’t even remember but that now sound too true to be anything but precisely what he said.

He had suspected. He’d suspected more when Annelise mailed him the manuscript instead of an envelope full of anthrax, but now that he has this he doesn’t know what to do with it.

So it’s Arthur, leaving Eames clues in his writing that he didn’t leave in real life.

But it still doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense that Oliver is speaking Eames’ side of the conversation, it doesn’t make sense when Grey kisses Oliver, chastely, and welcomes him back to the team. Or, rather: it makes sense in the context of the story, of two eighteen-year-olds working things out, running on hormones and hope. It doesn’t make sense for whatever Arthur is saying to Eames.

If Wikipedia is to be believed, Anthony Ruske lives in New York City.

Eames figures Cobb has to know, and when the time zone winds around to morning in California, Eames calls him.

“Where’s Arthur?” he asks, and Cobb hums noncommittally into the receiver.

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information,” he says.

“I know he’s Anthony Ruske,” Eames says.

“No he’s not,” Cobb says.

“ _Yes_ ,” Eames hisses.

“It’s not you?” Cobb asks, and then continues as an aside, “Eat that, Pippa, or I’ll give your brother your cookies.”

“No,” Eames says.

“Looks like I’m out fifty bucks,” Cobb says. “You would think Arthur would tell me things like this. He is my pointman.”

“Former,” Eames offers.

“Former pointman,” Cobb amends, and then he muffles the phone and shouts indistinctly, something about the bathroom and tomatoes.

“I’ll cover your bet if you give me his address,” Eames says. 

“Can you win the pot for me?” Cobb asks. “Say you wrote it?”

“I’ll ask Arthur if you give me his address,” Eames offers. He can picture Cobb considering this, squinting deeply at some indeterminate location near his feet, or the floor.

Eames gets the address. It is in New York City, and even though he was there already this week, he books himself the first available flight back.

The address Cobb gives Eames, when Eames puts it on the map (GoogleMaps, okay), falls into a dense tangle of streets between Chinatown and the Lower East Side. The Streetview shows shops on the lower feels of tight brick buildings, and that’s about what it looks like, in real life. Nothing looks particularly clean, and everything smells of heat and damp cement. There are air conditioning units in the windows, and Eames really thought Arthur could afford something nicer than this building, which doesn’t have a foyer so much as it has a door.

Eames isn’t sure what he expected, but the name plate for 3A says neither Arthur nor Ruske; it says Starker Grey. Which is not one of Arthur’s usual pseudonyms; which is kind of obvious, to anyone who knows what they’re looking for.

Eames skulks around a bit, tells a girl going out that he’s playing a prank on someone. She looks skeptical. He tries to look terribly earnest. She lets him in, and he lets himself into 3A.

It’s a simple lock, and Arthur should know better, but when Eames opens the door Arthur is just _there_ , with his back to the door, leaning forward on his elbow at a wide wood table pushed up against the window, looking out. There’s no a/c unit in the window; the air is dense and hot and Arthur hooks one elbow over the back of the chair and turns around.

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” he says.

“Now, as it turns out,” Eames replies. It sounded better in his head--once it’s been said it just sounds sort of flat and obvious, and Arthur is sitting at this table, twisted around to look at him, and Eames isn’t sure what he should be doing. Demanding an explanation?

Arthur’s gaze is dark and even. He’s wearing glasses with thick black frames, his hair is askew, it shouldn’t look as good as it does. It should look pretentious, like someone’s idea of a writer sitting at their desk in New York City, but instead it just looks like Arthur in eyeglasses. 

“I demand an explanation,” Eames says.

“That’s it?” Arthur says. “You demand an explanation?”

Arthur gets up, slides his chair into the table, turns around and meets Eames’ gaze.

“That’s all you want?” he continues. He’s moving across the room. The floors are linoleum, which is another unexpected piece of this equation, and Arthur’s bare feet make a muted padding noise as he approaches. He’s dressed--he’s not really dressed, in thin jeans with holes in both knees and a t-shirt that looks like it was tye-dyed at home.

“Did you dye that shirt yourself?” Eames asks, and Arthur glances down at his torso like he’d forgotten what he was wearing, then looks back at Eames.

“What do you want?” Arthur says. He’s stopped walking, and now he’s standing still in front of Eames at what might be normal conversational distance. At the moment, Eames isn’t entirely sure. 

“That’s what I was wondering,” Eames says. “You know what Annelise sent me?”

“I told her to,” Arthur says. “What did you think?”

“I think you need to tell me what’s going on,” Eames says. “Who the hell is Grey?”

“Grey’s himself,” Arthur says. “He’s a character in a book.”

“Then tell me why he and Oliver are having our conversation,” Eames says. “The conversation that did not end at all like that in real life.”

Arthur blinks at him, eyes liquid.

“I had rather thought that would be obvious,” he says, and turns back to his desk, like the conversation is over, like the answer _is_ obvious.

“No,” Eames says to Arthur’s back. “No it isn’t.”

“Well read it again, then,” Arthur says.

Eames is gaping at him. He knows he’s gaping; he can feel the expression he’s wearing on his face. Arthur doesn’t, obviously, because his back is to Eames and the window is open so there’s not even a sheet of glass to offer the shadow of a reflection.

“No,” Eames says. Arthur’s back goes stiff, but he doesn’t turn around.

“No,” Eames repeats. “After inception--and I know you remember, apparently better than I did--all that shit about how I didn’t want what I thought I wanted? What did you think I wanted?”

Arthur shifts slightly. He’s sitting up, he’s not hunched over, he’s listening.

“And whoever Grey is, _why did you give him my childhood_?”

“It was a red herring,” Arthur says. “You aren’t Grey. You’re Oliver.”

“That doesn’t make it better,” Eames says. Arthur sighs.

“Sit down,” he says, gesturing to the chair on the other side of the table. Eames does, and Arthur takes off his glasses, folds them and sets them on top of the laptop that’s lying shut on the table. 

“I assume you’ve heard the rumors,” he says.

“I’ve been a bit busy, actually,” Eames says, resting his elbows on the table, laying his hands out flat, spreading his fingers. It’s easier to look at his hands than at Arthur, because he knows his hands. 

“They’ve pushed back the release date,” Arthur says. “For _Inception_.”

“Yeah?” Eames asks.

“It turns out Anthony Ruske is having some trouble,” Arthur says. In his peripheral vision, Eames can see him toying with the earpieces of the glasses.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” Eames says.

“Looking at the computer all day tires out my eyes,” Arthur says. The thought hangs there for a moment, almost completely insignificant. Eames reaches across the table and loops his pinkie around Arthur’s.

“Anyway, Anthony Ruske,” Arthur continues. “Having some trouble. It seems that he can’t quite resolve the relationship between his main character and the romantic interest.”

“Who is not Lizbet.”

“Who is not Lizbet, dumbass,” Arthur says. He sounds almost fond.

“And so what I read?” Eames asks, and he catches the motion of Arthur nodding.

“That was an attempt,” he says.

“An attempt,” Eames repeats.

“An attempt at resolving some external issues that might have something to do with the problem,” Arthur says.

Eames looks up. Arthur’s watching him with almost immeasurable patience, quiet and still.

“What do you want?” Arthur asks again, after a moment passes in silence, one and then another, two beats of breath and heart.

“I had thought that you already knew,” Eames says.

“If I _knew_ ,” Arthur says, sounding annoyed. “I wouldn’t be asking.”

Eames stares at him. It’s so stupid. It’s stupid and kind of obvious, simple solution, a simple problem that could’ve been solved at any time, with a few words from either of them.

“Arthur,” Eames breaths out in a long exhale of everything--frustration, stupid history, _these books_.

Arthur looks at him sideways, a quick glance hooded by short lashes.

“Forgers don’t do relationships,” he says.

“Damnit, Arthur,” Eames says, because there’s really nothing left to say. “You of all people should know I’m a liar.”

“So can I believe you now?” Arthur asks, and Eames kisses him, badly.

It’s possibly the worst second kiss in the history of second kisses, because their first kiss was wasted on a trick Eames played on a job, because of the angle of the table, because when Eames tries to get up and get a better angle he jabs himself in the stomach and winces into it, folding up upon himself to clutch his side, and then Arthur kind of laughs, because he’s an asshole.

“So I’m the mysterious Oliver, huh?” Eames says, when he recovers, and Arthur elbows him in the tender spot in his stomach where he just got _jabbed_.

“This changes everything,” Eames continues.

“You’re such an asshole,” Arthur says, and then he loops his arms around Eames’ neck and pulls him closer, and they get the third kiss just about right.


End file.
